she went in with an earache and came out with asthma

So I had a great post all lined up for today about a STROKE OF GENIUS I had yesterday. Seriously. I should win the Nobel Prize for Organizing for this one.

Or perhaps it's sheer lunacy. I'll let you all decide.

But instead of uploading pictures of my brilliancy, I spent the morning in the pediatrician's office.

Guess who.

Shout woke up this morning, well... SHOUTING. Loudly.

Her ear was hurting. If I can just review for a minute, she got tubes in her ears last March and by November, one had already pushed it's way out.

And it's still trapped way in her waxy swamp ear canal.

So off to the pediatrician we went. Dr. Everything Will Be Alright wasn't there. We saw a new member of the practice, a nurse practitionista.

One of the first things she did was stick a strep test down her throat. Which is weird because her throat wasn't hurting. And it wasn't red. And she had no fever.

But whatever. Maybe there is some rampant strain of strep running around that is entirely symptomless, right? Except it was negative.

Next, she checked her ears and said the one tube was blocked. The tube that's not in her eardrum. So I mentioned that the ENT said that tube was no longer in place and she said it looked fine to her. Except it was blocked.

????

Except, I have a cheap-ass otoscope from Amazon and even *I* can see that the tube is not in her eardrum.

Hmmm...

But she prescribed some drops to clear the tube that might also relieve the pain. So, yeah. We'll try it.

Then.

Then, my friends, she listened to her chest.

And she said she was wheezing.

And I said, "HUH?"

Wheezing?

She has no cold. No cough. No allergy. NOTHING.

All I could say was, "Seriously?"

They checked her pulse ox and it was 98, which is essentially NORMAL. Then they gave her a nebulizer treatment. Which she hated. I had to sing. And dance. And make crazy faces. Just to get her to keep the mask on.

Then they checked her pulse ox again, and it was 97. Which is technically worse. But still totally normal.

After listening to her chest again, it was decided that she needed ANOTHER nebulizer treatment.

(Can I just mention here that these are inhaled steroids?* That make you CRAZY. And this is the kid who NEVER sleeps and ALREADY IS CRAZY.)

More singing. Dancing. Facial gymnastics.

Then.

THEN, we were given a nebulizer to take home. Where we are supposed to continue doing this every four hours for the next three days.

Whaaaaa? SERIOUSLY?

Cheer is the only kid in our house who has ever wheezed. And he has REALLY wheezed. To the point where we almost took him to the emergency room. But we never got a nebulizer to take home.

Weird?

(I went along with it all because I actually figured that I could use the nebulizer and medicine for him. Not Shout. Who, as far as I can tell, IS NOT ACTUALLY WHEEZING.)

After making 3 different trips to the pharmacy (and don't even get me STARTED on all that), I have all the medicine and put some drops in Shout's ear.

For the EARACHE.

THE ONE WE WENT TO THE DOCTOR FOR.

They didn't really help.

gah

* I stand corrected. My mommy lung expert informed me they are bronchodilators, not steroids. (Thanks, A!) The effect of a preschooler on crack is the same though.